After the death of her husband four years ago, Hartley Watson is finally ready to meet someone - and maybe even have a second chance at love. But then, just as her dating life seems to be getting started, Hartley is struck with a horrifying realization: Someone is watching her. Entering her home. Even knows the intimate details of her life. How else to explain the strange deliveries, or the sudden appearance of mementos from her dead spouse - ones that she had kept for so long in storage?

I met him in college, and I fell in love. It was a beautiful love, pure and perfect. Max quickly became everything I could have ever wanted. He was the jock, the popular guy, and I was just Belle - but he made me so much more. He gave me everything I could have ever wanted in life. But one night, one accident changed everything.

My future had always been set. Like a road paved by skilled builders, without bends or intersections, I walked the path my parents laid for me. My marriage to the future of The Outfit was all that mattered. I didn’t have a choice. Belonging to the world’s largest criminal organization wasn’t easy but belonging to him was. With Jacob, I’d got lucky and as a mafia princess, I couldn’t have asked for more. Jacob was beautiful and kind and the road to him was bright with sunlight and sweet with the fragrance of flowers. Until it wasn’t. Until it became dark with shadows.

It should have been an easy sell. He was just another client, a wealthy target. I offered him what I had. He stole the rest. Beautiful. Confident. His mafia lineage made him a conqueror. He dominated my senses. He planned to rule my body as well. I didn’t have a chance at keeping my heart.

He saved me from war. Fed me when I was in too much pain to eat. Smuggled me and my family into America when it became too dangerous to stay. But, Nico didn't flee with us. While I began elementary school in the United States, he was building the greatest and toughest Mafia of the century. The Mafia Shqiptare. Nico is now king of all underground trades. Sexy. Aggressive. Brilliant. After years of nothing but silence, he's back in my life, ready to do whatever it takes to bring me into his universe.

I was known as the traitor's daughter. When I was five years old, my father was tortured, branded with the letter Z, then beaten and left for dead. The grueling punishment for his crime was a reminder to all others who dared threaten the Russian's reign. I was the young girl left behind. A living piece of the traitorous puzzle the Russian leader tried so diligently to ignore - until I grew up. No longer could he deny how much my existence had always been intertwined with his. And in order to survive the life I was thrown into, I was forced to learn my place inside of it.

Valentin Bychkov, rising star of contemporary Russian ballet, appears to have everything: wealth, talent, success, and a face and body to match. Not that anyone can get close. Bypass the entourage and there's still Valentin's sharp tongue and acerbic wit to deal with. He may give his body freely, but his emotions are tightly locked away. Max Farley's life is a simple one. All he's interested in is work, drinking, and picking up the next one-night stand. How he chooses to live may not be to everyone's taste, but it suits him. No one's made him want to confront his demons, until now.

Rome Armanelli is supposed to be a monster—an enforcer for the strongest family in the Italian Mafia. Yet, when I saw him take a man’s life, he did it to save mine. Since then, Rome doesn't want me anywhere near him. Sparks may fly when we're in the same room, but his famiglia is all he cares about. He tells me to leave, but he, of all people, should know—the Mafia doesn't let anyone go. Blood, ties, and partnerships sink their claws in. And when we find out exactly why his family kept me around, there's no turning back.

Lorenzo Gambini is bored. So f--king bored. Most people either annoy him or avoid him, afraid to face him. Figuratively. Literally. With his face partially disfigured, scarred, he looks every bit the monster the stories make him out to be: the notorious Scar. They say he's a sociopath. Maybe he's a psychopath. Whatever path he's on, people tend to stay far away from it. Until one day, a young woman bumps right into him - a woman just as fed up with life, but for much different reasons.

Wherever I went, I heard it: the sound of a purring motorcycle behind me. They never bothered me or said a word. But I knew they were there because of him - Devlin McRae, the head of the local MC. Being followed all the time like this was disconcerting. And lately, the bikes had been getting closer, less secretive, more obvious. What would I do if Devlin ever caught me?

He came into my life like a raging storm. The man I despised. The killer with no conscience. I fell as hard as a woman like me can fall. When he bleeds, I feel his pain. When we kiss, I taste his tragedy. When he kills, my heart is stained with all the colors of his vengeance.

After his father’s retirement, Elia Montalto took over organized crime in King’s Trace, Maine. His pragmatic nature makes him popular and allows him to strike alliances with government officials, which keeps prying eyes off his business. But even a town as small as theirs is not without risk or envy, and Elia has only ever really wanted one thing: Senator Harrison’s daughter.

Three months ago, I almost got hit by a car. The guy behind the wheel was as gorgeous as they come. We got to talking and… well, things got a little carried away, if you know what I mean. But when it was over, we went our separate ways. Except, not quite. The little plus sign on this pregnancy test tells me our story isn't over. But that's a problem for another day. First, I have to go to my sister's engagement party. When I see who she's marrying, my jaw hits the floor.

Savva is a filthy bratva beast, as cruel as he is charming and as brutal as he is gorgeous. When I took over my late father's biker bar, I also took over the payments he was making to Savva, the leader of a powerful mafia family operating on the edge of Las Vegas. But Savva couldn't be satisfied with money alone. He wanted more. He spilled into my life like a dark, inescapable shadow, stealing my dignity and drowning me in his sin. But his twisted promises and dark desires aren't enough to convince me to fall for him. Neither are his whiskey kisses and his iron abs.

Alexis should've never set foot in my world. Men like me stain girls like her. We take their innocence and tear it to shreds. She thinks she's tough. She thinks she can handle me. But she doesn't know just how deep my darkness goes. It was for the best that I claimed her for a night and left her behind. Anything more than that would have been cruel. I thought I'd seen the last of Alexis Wright. So imagine my surprise two years later when the door to my office opens...and she walks in.